Pubdate: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 Source: Amarillo Globe-News (TX) Copyright: 2000 Amarillo Globe-News Contact: P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo, TX 79166 Fax: (806) 373-0810 Website: http://amarillonet.com/ Forum: http://208.138.68.214:90/eshare/server?action4 Author: Robert Sharpe Note: Robert Sharpe is associated with Students for a Sensible Drug Policy, George Washington University Washington, D.C. DARE TO KNOW THE FACTS Did Department of Public Safety officials bother to read any research studies on DARE before donating tax dollars to the anti-drug program? (Feb. 17 article, "Area DARE programs to get DPS checks to boost efforts.") Every methodologically sound study of the program has found it to be either ineffective or counterproductive. Minimizing substance abuse requires strategies based on proven effectiveness, not "feel good" programs that please parents, educators and police. DARE should be scrapped entirely. The scare tactics used do more harm than good. Students who realize they are being lied to about marijuana often make the mistake of assuming that harder drugs are relatively benign as well. This is a recipe for disaster. DARE is part of the problem, not the solution. A federally funded Research Triangle Institute study of Drug Abuse Resistance Education found that "DARE's core curriculum effect on drug use relative to whatever drug education (if any) was offered in the control schools is slight and, except for tobacco use, is not statistically significant." Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, recently completed a six-year study of 1,798 students and found that "DARE had no long-term effects on a wide range of drug use measures"; that " DARE does not "prevent drug use at the stage in adolescent development when drugs become available and are widely used, namely during the high school years"; and that DARE may actually be counterproductive. According to the study, "there is some evidence of a boomerang effect among suburban kids. That is, suburban students who were DARE graduates scored higher than suburban students in the Control group on all four major drug use measures." A California study of 5,000 students found that the Los Angeles-based DARE program was ineffective in reducing drug use among schoolchildren. - --- MAP posted-by: Greg